iEntulessë Cálëo
by ForEru'sSake
Summary: Elros has left to live among the Edain, Elrond wants nothing more than to have him back at his side. Deep in the night, the Maia Eönwë finds him sitting by the sea, lost in grief, and decides to talk to him and ends up telling him of his own brother, Mairon, who fought in the War in the same position as he did, but on the other side of the conflict.


A/N: All non-english words in this story are in Quenya, because I felt like that would be the language Eönwë would naturally choose to speak. Also, English is not my native language, so please point out any mistakes to me so I can correct them. I hope you will enjoy this story.

 **iEntulessë Cálëo**

What was it with this family that always drew them to the sea?

He found the Elf by the coast. Sitting in the dark on the wet sand, clothes and hair drenched with water, both from the violent storm which had only just died down, and from the sea, now calmly lapping at the Elf's boots.

"Eärendilion!"

The Maia's clear, bell-like voice rang through the air, easily drowning out the sound of the waves, turned soft with the death of the storm, and carrying across the grey, silent beach.

The Elf didn't stir. He just kept sitting there, with his shoulders hunched and his eyes downcast. As the Maia approached, his red, curly hair bouncing on the salty sea breeze, his leather-clad feet sinking ankle-deep into the wet sand with every step, he called out again:

"Perelda!"

The Elf's head snapped up and his whole body became tense.

"Don't call me that!" he snarled.

Facing away from the Maia, staring out over the ocean, he didn't see the sad, sympathetic smile on the Being's face.

"That's what you are is it not?" The Captain of the Host of the West asked as he crouched down next to the young Elf, Half-Elf.

"I don't know what I am anymore," came the response, "or what I am supposed to be." The despair in the Elf's voice tugged at the Maia's heart. The pain, the brokenness of it cut through him like a ship through the stormy waves that had been brutally battering the cliffs off to the north only minutes ago.

"Elrond."

The Maia said, and sighed. He momentarily closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, inhaling the rich, salty scent of the sea. When he opened his eyes again he looked away. He gazed out over the now calm water, imagined seeing the high peaks of the Pélori and the even higher peek of Taniquetil rising from the ocean, he imagined seeing the elegant, white arches of Alqualondë, the lush, green fields and the deep forest vales of Eldamar, and he imagined seeing the silver rays of light shining from the Mindon Eldaliéva in Tirion upon Túna. But he couldn't really see any of those places, and wouldn't be able to for some time yet, so he glanced at the young Elf sitting next to him, staring out in front of himself and stubbornly refusing to look at the Maia. The Being softly shook his head.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper, just loud enough to be heard.

"You took my brother from me," the young Elf whispered, evading the question. His voice was hoarse and the Maia dejectedly realised he must have been crying. As he looked at Elrond, still sitting next to him, he thought of the Elf's brother. He remembered well the conversation he had had with the both of them.

 _"You are special, my children, my brothers. You are a mix of three races: the Eldar, through both of your parents, the Maiar, through your mother, and the Edain, through your father," he had said to them. Over the long years of war he had come to know the twins, and he had come to like them. Elros had always been friendly to him, quite eager to talk to him about his experiences. Elrond, however, had always been wary of him, never openly hostile, but it had been obvious to the Maia, by the look in the young Elf's eyes, that he did not trust the Captain of the Host of the West, still didn't._

 _"They're not our parents, they abandoned us." Elrond had heatedly responded._

 _The Maia had recognized the anger in the Elf's eyes and had known that it needed to be dealt with, before it would consume him._

 _"I know it feels like that to you, Eärendilion, but they only did it to protect you," the Maia had begun, but Elrond had interrupted him:_

 _"Don't call me that! They left us when we needed them the most. The sons of Fëanor took us in, Maglor took us in, he cared for us, when no one else did."_

 _The Maia had sighed. He had pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced at Elros, who had been notably silent during the whole conversation._

 _"Elwing and Eärendil loved you, Kanafinwion, they still do. They left, to save the world, so that you, their children, might one day live in peace," the Maia had told them, "and because of their bravery the Valar will grant you and your brother this choice: to be counted among the Eldar and be immortal, but bound to the fate of Arda, or to be counted among the Edain and live a short life, but have the privilege to leave this world for the Timeless Halls upon death." The twins had gasped at that revelation. They had looked at each other. And the Maia had known at that moment what their choices would be. Elrond had looked at his brother with pleading eyes, but Elros' decision had already been set in stone._

"It was his choice," the Maia responded, trying to keep his voice level.

The Elf suddenly sprung to his feet and whirled around, facing the Maia.

"You gave him that choice!" He shouted, his face contorted into a feral snarl as his eyes filled up with tears.

"It was his destiny." The Maia said and stood, taking a deep breath.

"Don't speak to me of destiny." The Elf's voice was close to breaking.

"As this here is yours," the Maia finished his sentence and looked the Elf straight in the eyes. He saw the turmoil there, the emotions raging through the Elf's mind, threatening to consume him.

"This is my destiny?" He said, choking back a sob, "To mourn my family for all eternity?"

A single tear ran down his pale cheek. The Maia could see that the Elf was trying desperately not to break down in front of him. The Being looked away, a sad, compassionate smile on his lips and corrected the young son of Eärendil:

"To live through the pain, to find healing and to become stronger for it."

Elrond collapsed. Sobs wracked his body. He pulled his knees up to his chest, turning away from the Maia, as if doing so would make him disappear. The Captain of the Host of the West sighed and kneeled next to the young Elf, who was now silently rocking himself as hot tears streamed down his cheeks like rivers. He was conscious of the water, which the sand was drenched with, slowly seeping into his clothes, but he paid it no heed as he wrapped his arms around his grief-stricken companion. The Elf immediately went rigid. His eyes went wide in shock as he struggled to escape from the Maia's embrace.

"Leave me alone!" he screamed, his voice hoarse from crying and his eyes overflowing with fresh tears. Tears of grief and heartbreak, of anger and distrust, of fear and confusion. He kicked and punched the Maia, screaming invectives at him in every language he knew, twisted and turned around in his arms, trying to fight his way out of the Being's hold, but the Maia didn't so much as flinch. The Being held the Elf until his anger subsided and turned into soft, broken sobs again.

"Why can't everyone just leave me alone?" he asked, his voice a raw whisper.

The Maia felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes as he heard those words and closed his eyes in an effort to blink them away.

"Because you're too important to us all," he responded, trying desperately to keep his voice level, and failing.

"I don't want to be important."

The words hit so close to home. They shattered what was left of the Maia's heart to pieces. They were like a knife to his stomach, twisting, tormenting him, racking up memories that he had buried deep inside himself, to fester.

"Only those who are already lost to the darkness ever do." Shakily, the Chief of the Maiar inhaled. His vision was blurred by unshed tears.

" _I_ am lost, without him," the Elf said. His voice sounded flat. His tears, whose flow had seemed endless, had finally abated and had left him feeling empty, void of all emotion.

"I know," the Maia whispered, in between deep breaths, "I know what it's like to lose your twin. It's like a part of you has gone, has withered away and died, and you can never get it back."

Elrond blinked in surprise. He finally moved out of the Maia's embrace and sat back, truly looking at him for the first time since their conversation had started.

"You had brother?" he asked, as he briskly wiped the tearstains from his cheeks with the back of his hand. "What was his name?"

The Maia chuckled, but there was no humour in his laugh.

"He was called Mairon Aulendil, but you would know him by the name of Sauron Gorthaur."

The Elf could do naught but stare at him, eyes wide in shock. He swallowed in an attempt to get rid of the lump in his throat.

"Sauron Gorthaur is your twin-brother?" he asked, disbelief written plainly on his fair face, "but he doesn't look anything like you."

A wry smile tugged at the corner of the Being's mouth as he turned his face towards the see, his eyes closed as he calmly breathed in the fresh air. The soft breeze caught on his hair and lifted it up around his head like a red halo in the dark of the night.

"Our fánar don't necessarily look alike," the Maia said, his bell-like voice softly resonating with the wind, "but in spirit, we are one. We _were_ one." He paused, trying to decide what to say next.

"How do you even know what he looks like, you've never met him, have you?" The Maia could've been a statue, carved in stone, so perfectly still did he sit.

"No, I have not, but I have felt him, from across the battlefield. You say you two are one in spirit, but I can feel yours right now, and you're nothing like him." Elrond responded with a sureness.

The Maia's wry smile turned into a mirthless grin and his golden eyes flashed as he opened them and turned to look at the Elf again. The look on the Being's face sent shivers down the Elf's spine. The ancientness and the deep weariness in the Maia's eyes contrasted so starkly with his eternally youthful features. It was easy to look at the calm, philosophical Being sitting next to him and forget everything else that the Maia was. It easy to forget about the sly tactician, who held the strings pulled tout like a puppeteer, it was easy to forget about the deadly warrior, who would cut his perceived enemy's throat without a second thought, it was easy to forget about the pragmatic leader, who would do anything he had to win, to the point of ruthlessness, and it was easy to forget about the eloquent herald, who, with his clever words and his dazzling smile, could effortlessly persuade anyone to his chosen cause. Suddenly, Elrond could see the likeness between the Herald of Manwë and the Lieutenant of Morgoth. He remembered the visions he had seen in his sleep, of hair, bright golden like Eönwë's eyes, of orange-red eyes, like burning cinders, the colour of Eönwë's hair and of a dazzling smile, just like Eönwë's. He understood now why the dream, so innocent seeming, had had him waking up in cold sweat. He had always distrusted the Maia sitting beside him, he had blamed him for all his pain, but now he understood why he had always been wary of the Being. Because of his eerie similarity to the one who had locked his great-grandfather in a dungeon to be torn apart by werewolves.

"I am sorry," the Maia said quietly, "for everything."

And there was the difference. Sauron Gorthaur would not have apologized.

"There is no need for apologies, my lord," he whispered in response, a soft smile caught at his lips, "it's not your fault, none of it is."

The Maia smiled, not the seductive, enchanting smile he used on his allies and enemies alike, but the calm, indulgent smile he reserved for his friends. The Elf put aside the feeling of distrust and unease. It was still there, and he doubted it would ever go away, but he knew it was a groundless fear. The Herald of Manwë and the Lieutenant of Morgoth might be alike, they might even be one in spirit, but they were not the same person, not entirely, just as Elros and he weren't the same.

They sat like that, in companionable silence, for what felt like an eternity. Until the Elf broke it:

"I miss him."

The Maia was startled out of his reverie.

"You can visit him, he isn't dead," the Captain of the Host of the West responded as he turned to face the Elf.

"Yet," whispered the young Elf, melancholy seeping back into his voice.

"Then visit him while you still can," the Maia tried to comfort him, even though he knew it was useless. There was no comfort to be found for a loss so profound as that of one's twin.

"Yours isn't either," Elrond said, bitterness replacing melancholy. The Herald of Manwë flinched.

"He _is_ ," the Being nearly whispered, "He died a long time ago, when his heart turned to darkness. I always kept hope, hope that one day he would return to me, that one day he would repent, that we would be together again. But when he came to me, at the end of the War, to do what I had always hoped he would, I saw that I was wrong, had been wrong all along. He was frightened, so terribly frightened."

Elrond noticed the subtle change in the Maia's speech. He noticed the shift in accent. The same he had noticed when the Maia had first mentioned his brother. With its quiet hum, its rolling echo and its harsh, yet lilting cadence, it sounded completely alien, almost ethereal to him. He knew instinctively what it was. Thinking of his brother, the Maia unconsciously reverted back to the Valarin accent of his youth.

"Isn't that a good thing in this case? Doesn't his fear show that he _is_ alive?" he asked, mesmerized by the glow that the change in accent seemed to bring to the Maia's skin and hair, and the fire that it lit in his eyes, burning bright under the light of the moon and stars. But the Maia shook his head.

"He wasn't afraid because of punishment, he was afraid of losing. He was afraid of losing his position, of losing his face. I looked into his eyes and I saw death. I saw an emptiness that wasn't my brother, but something else entirely."

Elrond looked at the Maia, and on his face he saw the same pain, the same mind-numbing sorrow he felt as he thought of Elros. He pitied the Being. He himself had not wanted to speak of his brother, and now he was pushing the Maia to do exactly that.

"I thought Maiar couldn't die?" he asked.

"My lord?" he added, when the Captain of the Host of the West didn't respond, thinking he had gone too far, thinking he had offended the Herald of the Valar with his persistent questioning. Just as he was about to apologize, the Maia answered:

"We can. We do, when we completely turn to darkness, when we turn our backs on the Songs from which we were created, there is no way back. I don't know when it happened, if it was at the very beginning, when he first joined Melkor, or later when he became his lieutenant, or just now, when he lost his master, that he lost all hope, but my brother died, spiritually, which is the worst kind of death, for it is the end of everything beautiful, of everything worth living for."

The Elf let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. The Maia was staring at the sea again, which had receded, telling him, along with Isil sinking slowly towards the horizon, that the night was coming to an end.

"The sky is getting lighter," he remarked, as he pushed himself to his feet, idly stretching his muscles, which had become sore from having sat on the wet sand for hours. The Maia followed his example.

"You still have it," the Elf said, "hope." It was a statement, not a question.

The Maia smiled softly, as he combed a hand through his flaming red hair, looking even brighter in the waning, white light of the setting moon.

"I have to. It is the only way to survive, to live through the pain, to find healing and to become stronger for it." Elrond recognized the words, and now too he recognized how true they were.

"Hope is what has sustained me through ages upon ages of war and heartbreak. Without it, I would've followed my brother down his dark path a long time ago."

The Elf cast a look over his shoulder, to the sea, which, having been wildly crashing into the shore earlier, now calmly and beautifully reflected the lightening sky.

"It will sustain you too, Elrond Eärendilion," the Maia called out from high up the sand dunes, having already climbed his way to the top. This time, the young Elf did not mind the name. He had changed, he thought as he made his way to where the Maia was waiting for him. The Being's skin was glowing in the first sunlight and his curly hair danced around his head like burning flames. The whole world seemed lighter, somehow, and it felt like a great burden had been lifted off of Elrond's shoulders. The pain was still there, a dull ache in his chest, and he knew that it would never go away, but he could deal with that, as a reminder that his brother was still there, inside of him.

"I hope so," he said as he reached the top of the dune and went to stand next to the Herald of the Valar. They looked on, as Isil finally sank behind the horizon, and behind them, Anar rose to her full glory, basking them in the first rays of her light.

"And that is all that matters, meldonya," Eönwë said, with the surety of one who spoke from personal experience, "that we always keep hoping."

A/N: Thank you for reading this, reviews are appreciated, I've only been writing for a short while :)


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